His Diary

1. The Charlie Diaries

Charlie sits at the dining room table staring down at the open diary in front of her, the words Dear Diary, are written at the top left of the page, above them, today's date written in long-form: 21st February 2019 (Monday).

She taps her pen continually on the page not knowing what to write. Questions flit around in her mind, asking her the most mundane things, like what she wants to write and to whom. She provides nothing more than a mundane answer in return, not really helping her cause.

Maybe she'll look back at it in 20 years and see how far she's come, or perhaps she'll burn it as soon as the pages are filled. No-one truly knows what to do with material thoughts. The act of making your most intangible secrets so tangible and available to the world is an act of exposure. Indecent almost, so much that it must be kept hidden save for the one whose thoughts they are.

But it's up to the thinker to write down their thoughts and so she continues to stare and one diary turns into two as pain blooms behind her crossed eyes, blurring the lines and reflecting the fuzziness clouding her brain.

The table shakes beneath her and she with it as an "argh fuck!" is yelled out. The sound of someone large stomping down to balance themselves follows and Charlie knows immediately who's entered the room.

She watches the dark liquid in her mug slosh around. It teases the lip of the mug and her breath catches, but she makes no move to save stop any damage, just continuing to watch with tired eyed as gravity pulls the coffee back in.

She lets herself breath normally again.

"Hello to you too, Daniel," she calls out, annoyed, still willing words from her mind to magically appear on the black lines before her.

Nothing happens.

Daniel rubs his hip and ignores her.

That was expected though. So is the noise he is currently making in the galley kitchen behind her. He moves around this space in a slow and clumsy manner, still tired despite having had almost ten hours of sleep the night before.

He bangs the cupboards closed and as glasses clink together loudly and violently, he winces, trying to move slower, with more care and purpose but everything is just still so harsh.

Charlie grits her teeth at the sounds. She rolls her eyes and try not to think about the damage being done to their already destroyed dishware. The noises soon slow down and she hopes - as she does every morning - that Daniel is waking up and becoming more aware of what he is doing, despite his actions remaining more violent than the regular person.

The toaster is set and a rare second of silence falls upon the apartment as Daniel leans against the counter, breathing deeply to centre himself before continuing. Charlie lets out her own deep breath, mimicking her brother. It's those strange moments of silence when she realises that she finds calm in the familiarity of the noise he makes. She won't admit it, but she worries deeply for him

Charlie takes up tapping again. Her pen drumming an uneven rhythm on the paper, the table, and occasionally her glass. It might seem as if she is trying to match the beat of the crashes and bangs happening behind her. Maybe her subconscious mind is trying to latch onto something, remind her that nothing is ever truly original. Not even her own tapping beat.

She doesn't notice.

Daniel's shadow extends across the table and Charlie once again lowers herself over her diary.

She listens as he pulls a chair out, scraping the legs roughly against the hardwood floor and slamming a bowl down, the spoon clinking against the rim sending milk flying across the table, a couple drops landing on the diary and diary and the tabletop beside it, one such landing on Charlie's exposed temple.